Today notes are by Harisfazillah Jamel of Malaysia. All about computers and Internet, Open Source FreeBSD and Linux. Today notes blog in Malay and English. HP-UX and SUN are among the operating system I used to work with. Need to know, want to know. We must do our best, because we are the best, going to be the best, best of the best.

Malaysian Government launches new initiatives for increased Open Source and OpenOffice.org deployment in public sector and schools

MAMPU Press Release

Malaysian Government launches new initiatives for increased Open Source and OpenOffice.org deployment in public sector and schools

Chief Minister of Terengganu launches state wide pilot of OpenOffice.org deployment in schools in conjuction with OSS Accelerated Adoption Seminars. Awards given for best case studies of successful government Open Source projects.

Kuala Terengganu, MALAYSIA. (May 27th 2008) -- Coinciding with the fourth regional OSS Accelerated Adoption Seminar this year, Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU), the Ministry of Education and the State Government of Terengganu are launching initiatives for increased adoption of Open Source Software in government and schools.

The OSS Accelerated Adoption Seminars is a national initiative to promote increased awareness and adoption of OSS by government agencies. To encourage knowledge sharing of successful deployments, MAMPU has been providing awards to the best case studies that have been shared from each region. They are provided for categories of IT infrastructure, business applications and desktop applications. To date they have highlighted successful implementations such as the Meterology Department regional network, the desktop implementation for Melaka and statewide deployment of OpenOffice.org in Kedah. For the East Coast states over a dozen case studies have shown successful Open Source software implementations of e-government applications from Pahang and Terengganu.

OpenOffice.org in Schools Pilot lauched today by the Chief Minister of Terengganu supports the increased adoption of OSS and deployment for the upcoming generation of Malaysians. OpenOffie.org is an Open Source software alternative for office productivity software. The pilot phase in the state involves deployment to over 100 schools since January 2008.

From January 2009, all 467 schools will start using OpenOffice.org in the state. It is planned that this will be expanded nationally to over 300,000 PCs in schools. The savings in licensing costs, support for open standards and platform neutrality and increased security from threat of document viruses of this software will provide better delivery of education services by students and teachers.

Seminars highlight accelerated adoption of OSS in public sector

The proven success of Phase I of the governments' Open Source Master Plan has shown that the the adoption of OSS in the government sector in several pilot projects are cost effective and provide better service delivery.

Now in Phase II, the OSS Accelerated Adoption Seminars are an initiative of MAMPU to promote and highlight increased adoption of OSS throughout the public sector. This seminar with over 500 attendees, the final of the year for regional seminars is held in Kuala Terengganu for the states of Pahang, Kelantan and Terengganu. To date over 281 agencies have already adopted OSS for the provision of IT services. This represents a ten-fold increase since original launch of the Master Plan in 2003.

Adoption of the open source office suite, OpenOffice.org for state government agencies is now official in the states of Melaka, Kedah, Pahang and Sabah. States like Melaka and Kedah have been deploying OpenOffice.org and OSS since 2003. Most recently Pahang State Government has issued a circular on the states intention for all state agencies to migrate to Openoffice.org. Combined they have saved millions in ringgit for licensing fees, expenditure now spent locally to provide better public services in their respective states.

In conjunction with the seminars, awards are given to recognise the best case studies of OSS implementations for each region. Highlights for the East Coast include Terengganu State Government Data Centre and e-Government projects all fully utilising open source software. The Terengganu State government has also setup a community training centre that has trained over 20,000 state citizens with IT skills using open source software on 585 Linux desktops.

In Pahang, an online information system for Vetrinary Services developed locally using OSS software has won national awards for innovation. A common finding for the case studies was increased security as OSS deployments of OpenOffice.org and Desktops were not affected by viruses.

The case studies also highlighted that staff were able to build their skills and knowledge due to the wealth of free information and tutorials associated with the OSS technologies available on the Internet. Furthermore with OSS, these initiatives can be deployed and developed and shared with other agencies without expensive licensing costs further providing avenues for cost savings, skills and knowledge sharing nationally within the public sector.

MOE launches pilot project of OpenOffice.org deployment in schools

The Ministry of Education with the support of MAMPU and the state government of Terengganu, also launched the pilot project for the deployment of OpenOffice.org in schools. The pilot starts with the deployment of OpenOffice.org in over 100 schools in the State of Terengganu. These include both urban and rural schools.

To date most school administrators and staff in the state have already been trained on the use of OpenOffice.org. Over the next 2 years, the Ministry of Education plans to build on this initiative and deploy OpenOffice.org in over 300,000 PCs in schools throughout the country.

The project is being implemented with the support of the Terenganu State Education Department with commitment and financial support from the State Government of Terengganu through the Implementation Committee chaired by B. En. Ahmad Razif bin Abdul Rahman the director for the Science, Technology and Human Resources Committee for the State of Terengganu. The implementaiton of this project hopes to achieve increased knowledge sharing and innovation for computer users with the optimum license and minimal cost.

About OSCC, MAMPU

Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit MAMPU's Open Source Competency Centre is first and single point of reference for support and guidance in the implementation of Open Source Software in the Public Sector. OSS Initiative is a cabinet decision. The Malaysian Administrative Modernization and Management Planning Unit, (MAMPU) was directed to study the feasibility of implementing OSS in the Malaysian Government Agencies.

In response to the directive, MAMPU has prepared a Memorandum entitled "Proposal on OSS Implementation in the Public Sector of Malaysia". The proposal recommendations were tabled by MAMPU and endorsed by the Malaysian Government on 19 June 2002. OSS implementation in the Public Sector will be carried out concurrently with the building of necessary infrastructure such as technical support and human resource reskilling and development. However, changes will be introduced in stages to ensure that there is least disruption to the services offered by the Public Sector and that change is managed well.

About Ministry of Education

The Malaysian Ministry of Education objective is to develop a world-class quality education system which will realise the full potential of the individual and fulfill the aspiration of the Malaysian nation. It oversees all primary and high school education in Malaysia.

The Terengganu State Government is comprised of the Chief Minister and elected State Assembly which governs the state of Terengganu.

Terengganu is a sultanate and constitutive state of federal Malaysia. The state is also known by its Arabic honorific, Darul Iman ("Abode of Faith"). The coastal city of Kuala Terengganu which stands at the mouth of the broad Terengganu River is both the state and royal capital as well as the largest city in Terengganu.

About OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org provides everything most people need in an office productivity suite. It is stable, reliable, and robust, built up over twenty years' development. It is actively developed, with several releases every year. The main components of the OpenOffice.org Suite are the Writer wordprocessor; the Calc spreadsheet; Impress for presentations; Draw for graphics; and the Base database.

OpenOffice.org uses the OpenDocument Format OASIS Standard (ISO/IEC 26300) as well as supporting legacy file formats such as Microsoft Office, and is available on major computing platforms in over 80 languages. OpenOffice.org software is provided under the GNU Lesser General Public Licence (LGPL) and may be used free of charge for any purpose, private or commercial.